This is a no BS Meigs story. When I was 20 (maybe 21) I was given a left seat checkout in a new King Air C90B. Quite a thrill when you are too young to even rent a car. Next up was a night trip to Meigs with a brand new co-pilot (the son of the company president, no less). He was a great kid but, like me, he had much to learn. I had never been to Chicago before but the weather was fine and I had been told that they kept the drama at a minimum so long as you stayed away from O’hare.
But as we go closer, the weather turned MVFR. Meigs had no instrument approach and the MVA must have been just a little too high to vector us below the clouds. So instead we were told to plan an ILS into 31 at Midway and if we felt comfortable cancelling we could proceed visually from there. Midway is no O’hare but if you are as inexperienced as the two of us were, going in there at night for the first time is a little hair-raising. So we studied and briefed and dialed and flew. At around 1500, we broke out to see the most amazing array of lights my young, red-neckish eyes had ever seen. I was entranced for about 2 seconds before Midway tower brought me back into the moment with, “Say intentions!” Neither of us even bothered to consider what we would do once we broke out. We were so stressed about Midway that we forgot that the biggest step was still ahead. That’s when my Atari 800 version of Flight Simulator saved the day (night). Sims were about as sophisticated as hardtack back then but FS2 had just enough detail to show the Handcock building, Sears tower, Soldier field and, most importantly, Chicago’s excellent grid layout. I knew that splitting the grid into a due 0-4-5 would get us close enough. After landing we tried to make the high five as discrete as possible so that our pair of passengers wouldn’t notice. 30 minutes later took on an even bigger challenge trying to find Miller’s Pub with the courtesy car. Neither of us had ever driven in a city bigger than Charlotte, NC. Sims rule. Being young is priceless.